TITLE: From A Whisper to A Riot: The Gay Writers Who Crafted an American Literary Tradition

AUTHOR: Adam W. Burgess

226 pages, Kindle Direct, ISBN 9781797500072 (paperback, e-book)

DESCRIPTION: (from Goodreads): For many decades, the two dominant areas of study for gay literature in America have centered on the periods of Stonewall Riots and the AIDS crisis. These examinations are critical and understandably exhaustive; however, the abundance of attention paid to studies within them further explains why less attention has been given to literature published before these momentous events. The truth is, the gay literary tradition in America is much longer and richer than we have acknowledged.

In this extensively-researched academic text, queer studies scholar Adam W. Burgess, Ph.D., examines the genesis of the gay literary tradition in the United States, which developed between 1903-1968. Burgess employs close literary analysis of critical but lesser known texts alongside sociocultural and historical perspectives in order to explain how and why gay authors managed to write and published in a time that was openly hostile to homosexuality and homosexual themes.

From A Whisper to A Riot contributes a critical missing component to the study of gay literature in the United States. It covers a range of authors, from Charles Warren Stoddard and Henry Blake Fuller to James Baldwin and Mart Crowley. The book is a must-read for academics, students, and scholars of American literature, history, and LGBT Studies.

MY RATING: Four out of Five stars

MY THOUGHTS: Adam Burgess’ From A Whisper to A Riot is a well-reasoned argument for the development of a deeper body of criticism and analysis of American gay fiction, and especially that work by known gay authors, that comes after Oscar Wilde but pre-dates Stonewall.

This is not an exhaustive index of every pre-Stonewall novel published in America that centers gay characters. That type of work would be valuable as well, but Burgess here is more concerned with the dearth of critical writing about such works: what might, without too much hyperbole, be considered the erasure of several decades worth of works which can be either uncomfortable reads (due to societal attitudes), inscrutable (due to the need to express homosexual aspects in carefully “coded” language to avoid censorship laws), or both. Using a relatively small selection of novels and one play, all originally published between 1903 and 1968, Burgess proposes an easily-followable methodology for such criticism. As such, Burgess’ first (and hopefully not last) exploration of the topic is not a breezy overview; he does some heavy lifting in dissecting works such as Edward Prime-Stevenson’s Imre: A Memorandum, Forman Brown’s Better Angel, Charles Warren Stoddard’s For The Pleasure of His Company, and Henry Blake Fuller’s Bertram Cope’s Year. Burgess also explores the popular-at-the-time Gay Pulp Novel genre and the harm it did in perpetuating the stereotype of gay men as perverted and effeminate and often suicidal. This is not an easy aspect of the gay American literary tradition to explore, bringing as it does so many triggering topics to the fore. Burgess handles them with delicacy and academic remove.

Burgess divides his analysis into four topics: how character displacement (for instance, sending an American character overseas to explore his sexuality) eased skittish readers into accepting the narrative; how the pulps perpetuated harmful stereotypes as opposed to the novels that preceded and followed the genre; how coding was used to signal a character’s homosexuality and actions in order to subvert obscenity laws; and how the novels handle the intersectionality of gender and sexuality. I think each section could probably be a more detailed book on its own, allowing for an even more detailed and nuanced analysis of the concerns brought up. I found the “coding” and “pulp” chapters to be more interesting than the “displacement” and “intersectionality” chapters, but your mileage may vary. Either way, I think the reader is likely to come away, as I have, with a lengthy list of previously-unfamiliar (to me) books to add to the To Be Read list.

Burgess does also acknowledge that some American gay fiction of the period has already been subject to deeper critical analysis (works by Truman Capote, James Baldwin and Gore Vidal for instance). He doesn’t ignore it, but also doesn’t re-hash it.

Tracking the movement of gay-centered (and more broadly, queer-centered) fiction from “the love that dare not speak its name” (a whisper) to “society-changing” (a riot) is not the easiest of tasks, but Burgess makes an excellent start with this volume.

MY THOUGHTS: The stories in this collection exemplify what I love about Will Ludwigsen’s writing. Two of the five give subtle fantastic/horrific twists to the world outside our own front door (to steal a phrase from Philip Jose Farmer), while two are character-driven alternate histories. The fifth story very neatly splits the difference. All five are propelled by strong voices or character points-of-view. The narrators may not always be reliable, but they are compelling.

“Perhaps” is what this book is all about. Or more properly, “what if?” ‘Perhaps’ what these characters are experiencing is supernatural, but it could all be in their minds. ‘What if’ one detail of our history was different, what would the ramifications be?

I’ve read or listened to the title story, “Acres of Perhaps,” several times now, but it was cemented as a new favorite on the very first read back in 2015. Ludgwigsen posits the existence of a 1960s horror/sf/fantasy anthology TV series that becomes a hit with fans due to the quality of the episodes but then flames out thanks to a sudden drop in quality in the second season. A fate many television shows fall victim to. But what if … what if that drop in quality was because the writer behind the most popular episodes experienced supernatural phenomena not once, but twice? Narrated in retrospect by the (in his own terms) “less talented” member of the writing staff, Barry Weyrich, we are privy not only to the rise and fall of the show and its staff, but also to the decades-long aftermath of cult fandom, tense convention appearances, and regret both professional (his role in the show’s fall) and personal (his long closeted life with his partner Tony). Each time I read it, I tease out some nuance in the characters of Barry Weyrich and David Findley that I hadn’t noticed, or hadn’t been paying attention to, before. And I still vacillate, with each reading, as to whether there’s really something supernatural going on in the story or not.

“The Leaning Lincoln” likewise teases the reader with a supernatural aspect – is the narrator’s childhood bad luck because of a possessed piece of leaden pirate treasure, or is it all just the luck of the draw – that sits behind a tale of a dysfunctional family, a sick friend, and a shattered friendship. The author’s notes at the back of the book reveal that this is one of Ludwigsen’s most personal stories, and I think it shows in the language of the narrator, who sways from conviction that the supernatural exists to conviction that it doesn’t, and back again – an ever-shortening pendulum of belief that motivates his positive and negative choices throughout the story. Other than the possibly-haunted (or maybe radioactive?) titular figurine, this story is straight out of the house down the road, and it feels both intimate and an intrusion. The real life horror exposed is far more frightening than the idea of a haunted toy.

When Ludwigsen takes on alternate history as a genre, he eschews the big socio-political events (like the outcomes of major wars or political campaigns) for more immediate (as in personal) changes that still have major impacts on the timeline.

“Night Fever” hinges on a seemingly-small thing: Charles Manson getting out of prison a decade after he did in our world, after a botched escape attempt. In some hands, this would lead to Manson having a positive effect on society, following the prevalent theory that it was the culture of the 1960s that led him to do the things he did. Ludwigsen thinks Manson would have been Manson regardless – his cult would have just developed in a different city, with different music as inspiration/justification. The story unfolds in a documentary/epistolary format: details given to the reader from various newspaper accounts, magazine profiles, tell-all memoirs, essays by Truman Capote, courtroom and interrogation room recordings. Charlie himself is quoted and described but never gets his own chance to tell his side of the story, which allows him to be exposed for what he is while still retaining an aura of mystery.

The alternate history of “Poe at Gettysburg” also hinges on a personal moment: what if the orphaned Edgar Poe had been adopted not by the Allans, but by theatre folk friends of his late parents? In this world, his rebellion against the wishes of his adoptive family leads him to law practice, which leads to his Presidency, rather than Lincoln’s, during the Civil War, and thus to a very different, but no less moving, Gettysburg Address.

“The Zodiac Walks on the Moon” could be considered a touch of alternate history, in that it’s presented in the form of a letter to the newspapers that the real Zodiac Killer never wrote. But it’s also a bit of the supernatural-tinged world outside our door, in that there’s no reason to think the real Zodiac Killer wouldn’t have been affected by the first Moon Landing. This is the shortest story in the book, relying on the audience’s familiarity with the real events mentioned at the start and on the reader’s sketching in their own mental image of the man writing this letter about how stunning human achievement can be and how it’s motivating him on his chosen path. It’s emotionally raw in a different way from “The Leaning Lincoln,” and it’s as distinctly voiced as Poe’s speech in “Poe at Gettysburg.”

In between each of the five stories are short “excerpts” from a non-existent (as of yet, anyway) episode guide to the Acres of Perhaps television show. Ludwigsen not only captures the essence of the 60s anthology shows (Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, even Alfred Hitchcock Presents), he captures perfectly the tone of books that analyze the episodes for their socio-political commentary both in and out of the context of the times. On Facebook, I petitioned Ludwigsen to please get in touch with Barry Weyrich and David Findley and any other crew of Acres of Perhaps to get their memories of the show and create a full episode guide before they pass away. Because yes, I’m convinced that there must actually have been such a show, even if the episodes themselves are no longer extant. (My favorite summary, of the episode “Dark Horse Candidate,” includes mention of a character played by an “uncharacteristically oily Leslie Nielsen”.)

In fact, any of the five stories in this collection could easily be episodes of the titular television show (although maybe “Night Fever” would need to be a tv-movie-of-the-week-length installment). If Netflix is looking for an anthology challenger to CBS’s streaming Twilight Zone, (and a creepy-horror sister series to their own more SF-based Black Mirror), this would be the ideal basis. And I mean, come on, what genre fan wouldn’t watch a show called “Acres of Perhaps”?

DESCRIPTION: (from Goodreads): Far, far away, there is a beautiful Country which no human eye has ever seen in waking hours. Under the Sunset it lies, where the distant horizon bounds the day, and where the clouds, splendid with light and color, give a promise of the glory and beauty that encompass it. Sometimes it is given to us to see it in dreams. This Country is the Land Under the Sunset. This is the story of that Country, and what happened when evil came to abide there. It is a story all of us must hear.

MY RATING: Three stars out of Five

MY THOUGHTS: Over the past few years, I’ve been attempting to read through all of the works of Bram Stoker. It’s been a slow project. I usually put one owned-but-unread Stoker work on my TBR Challenge list each year, but there have been years where I don’t complete the Challenge and the Stoker choice for that year goes unread. I’m also pacing myself on the Stoker books I do own until I get around to buying the ones I don’t. Semi-regular re-reads of Dracula, and less frequent re-reads of The Jewel of the Seven Stars and The Lair of the White Worm, don’t help my pace either. All of this to say that I’ve been meaning to read Under the Sunset for years. I finally got around to it in May – and I’m tempted to say that’s a couple of hours of my life I’ll never get back.

Okay, it wasn’t that bad. But it’s certainly not Dracula’s Guest and Other Weird Stories in terms of consistent quality, either.

I’d first read some of Stoker’s short stories in a tidy little volume called The Bram Stoker Bedside Companion, acquired at a library book sale somewhere in my teen years during my early fascination with Dracula and Lair of the White Worm. I liked most of the stories in that volume, many of which felt very Poe-like, and only later found out that a number of them were either novel excerpts or pulled from other collections, like this one. So I was prepared to enjoy a collection of fairy tales set in a land like our own distant past but a little bit different. A land where Evil hasn’t take root, except when it has. Or maybe it hasn’t, and all the bad things that happen are just because people are stupid and selfish? Or they’re stupid and selfish because Evil did sneak past the angelic guardians at the borders? So maybe it is all Evil’s fault after all? I’m not sure, by the end of the collection, that even Stoker knew exactly what his point was for the over-arching theme.

The title story theoretically sets the tone for the book as a whole, and the tone this one sets is stilted direct address to the reader, flowery almost purple-prose writing that is archly Victorian without any of the whimsy that makes the fairy tales of, say, Oscar Wilde so enjoyable. Not every story employs this tone, but the damage is kind of done after the first couple of pages: Stoker warning his (theoretically young and impressionable) readers that they had best pay attention and learn the lessons of the stories to follow, to think upon the fate of the Land Under the Sunset once they (knowingly or not) let Evil in to do its will. But then that thread, as I mentioned, seems to drop from most of the stories – Evil isn’t really behind most of what happens in the succeeding stories despite the overblown introduction.

My favorite story in the collection, “The Invisible Giant,” feels very Wildean: a young girl is the only one who can see an oncoming Giant, a race the humans of the Land have long since stopped believing exists, and the only one who believes her is an old hermit from outside the town. Everyone ridicules the both of them, until people start dying and the Giant turns out to be Plague. Another story of battle with a giant, “The Rose Prince,” is also enjoyable if slightly longer than it needs to be. If you can get past the awkward pre-teen romance and some very repetitive segments, it’s a good yarn about a Prince who saves the day when whole armies are incapable of the feat. And Stoker employs the “story within a story” model well in “How 7 Went Mad,” which is at once a morality play about paying attention in school and being careful what you wish for and also a surrealist farce where numbers and letters have life and talk. The ridiculousness of the final few pages of the story put me in mind of the zanier parts of The Phantom Tollbooth.

Other stories don’t work as well. The moral of “Lies and Lilies” is so blunt, and the characters so one-dimensional, that Stoker may as well have written “Don’t Lie, It Ends Badly” and saved a dozen pages or so. “The Castle of the King” is circuitous and feels unending as it slogs its way along. And I fell asleep twice trying to read “The Wondrous Child,” whom I didn’t find so much wondrous as manipulative and annoying. (It’s possible the title character is a call-back to the angelic babe who features in the title story of the collection, but I came to a point where I no longer cared if the connection existed or not simply because the characters in “Child” are so annoying.) And I’m still really not sure what to make of “The Shadow Builder,” another story that feels overwritten but also manages to include some wonderfully creepy scenes and (dare I say it, Lovecraftian?) turns of phrase.

I think ultimately my problem with this collection is that the stories feel derivative. Now I realize that a) at the time they were published they probably were not derivative even of Stoker’s peers and b) it’s impossible to be derivative of works that weren’t published until decades later (like Lovecraft and the Phantom Tollbooth). But I do think that anyone coming to this collection for the first time at this late date and after having already read Wilde, Poe, Lovecraft and Juster (not to mention the more well-known traditional fairy tales of Perrault, Grimm and Andersen) is likely to feel, as I did, that the stories in Under the Sunset feel a bit overwritten and a touch too familiar.

DESCRIPTION: (from Goodreads): Algorithmic Shapeshifting is the first poetry collection of Bogi Takács, winner of the Lambda award for editing Transcendent 2: The Year's Best Transgender Speculative Fiction, and finalist for the Hugo and Locus awards. Algorithmic Shapeshifting includes poems from the past decade and previously unpublished work. The scope of the pieces extends from the present and past of Jewish life in Hungary and the United States to the far-future, outer-space reaches of the speculative—always with a sense of curiosity and wonder.

MY RATING: Four out of five stars

MY THOUGHTS: I should start out with an admission, for those who don’t already know: I am not a huge poetry reader in general, and don’t consider myself enough of such to provide deep critical analysis. I actually thought I was requesting a copy of Bogi’s upcoming debut short story collection when I asked for a review copy of this (I got the titles and release dates confused. Not anyone’s fault but my own.). This review will be more about the feelings Bogi’s work elicits than about any critical analysis of structure or style.

Obviously, if I gave the book four out of five stars, the writing affected me. There’s so much here to be moved by: so much pain and love and hope and history and speculation. As a white, gay, cisgender male born and raised in the northeast United States and in the Roman Catholic faith, most of Bogi’s poems don’t speak to my lived experience: I’m not agender trans, not an immigrant, not of the Jewish faith. I needed to approach this work at least partially from a place of understanding that I am not necessarily the intended audience, and with an eye towards listening, learning, absorbing and considering life outside my own bubble. I am so thankful to Bogi for this book, for these poems E has written and shared with us. E is not responsible for educating me, but does so with every poem, every paragraph.

Another admission: there was a time when I struggled mightily with any first-person narrative that didn’t include clear indications of the character’s gender. (Interestingly, I never had a problem with genderless or gender-fluid characters described in third-person narratives – just with stories in which I could not discern the gender of the narrator.) I’ve long since gotten over that, and I have to thank writers like Bogi – by writing about emself, E and others expanded my horizons. (Again – not their responsibility!)

The book is divided into conceptual sections: “Trans Love Is,” “A Gentle Introduction to Talmudic Argument Structure,” “Daily Dispatches From the Land of the Free,” “The Up-and-Out.” You can guess what you’re going to get in each section, and you’re mostly right.

“Trans Love Is” is mostly poems that describe, sometimes obliquely and sometimes straightforwardly, the experience of being trans, agender, neuroatypical. Not that Takács’ experience is everyone’s experience, which the author acknowledges in “The Handcrafted Motions of Flight.” The narrator remembers pasts and presents: “some are me, some only similar to myself / and some carry more of me / than my self living and writing in the present.” The same poem, just a few lines later, addresses how some people just can’t accept the form of the messenger: “They are bothered by the pronouns.” (There are more subtle references to anti-trans and anti-gender-neutral sentiment throughout the book, and more obvious references as well. But this one, coming after a stanza in which the pronouns used are E and eir, is particularly powerful for its brevity, for what it leaves understood but unstated (that it’s more than just the pronouns, and the people in question are likely more than just “bothered,” which is a mild word for what anyone not cisgendered is likely to face). The poem from which this section of the book derives its title, “Trans Love Is” is a list type of poem that shows that Trans Love is, in the end, really not different from “straight love” or “gay love:” buying non-dairy items and blackberry sage tea for the ones you love, microwaving hot dogs and taking joy in the gigglecry of your child. It’s verbal shorthand between partners. It’s finding the commonality of the spaces between labels. It might be my favorite poem in the collection because it is everyday-sweet with a tinge of the wider world’s lack of acceptance (“Trans love elicits surveillance”) and a dollop of neuroatypicality (“the burning desire to do FIVE loads of laundry / and tell the interrogation officer / there are no terrorists in Hungary”). The poem that lends the collection’s title, “Seven Handy Ideas for Algorithmic Shapeshifting,” is also wonderful, subversion couched in fantasy terms. And I would love to see “The Iterative Nature of the Magical Discovery Process” performed live; it’s powerful in written form and I can only imagine how much more powerful it could be when spoken out loud and coupled with creative lighting.

Looking over the section titled “A Gentle Introduction to Talmudic Argument Structure,” I’m not sure it was quite accidental that I read this book just before Barbara Krasnoff’s mosaic novel The History of Soul 2065, as random as the choices seemed at the time. Both deal heavily in Jewish tradition and how it migrates from the Old World (in Krasnoff’s stories, Germany and Ukraine, in Takács’ poems, Hungary) to the New (for Krasnoff, mostly New York City, for Takács, mostly Kansas). Takács draws more directly from the Talmud and Rabbinic teachings than Krasnoff does. The poems touch on reconstructive surgery, reincarnation, interacting with harmful spirits, exploring other planets, and our responsibility to pass on the knowledge of our forebears to our descendants, all through that lens of Jewish faith and history. This section made me want to reread what the tradition I grew up in calls the Old Testament, but also to talk more deeply with my Jewish friends about these poems and about their faith in general.

The poems in the section titled “Daily Dispatches from the Land of the Free” are more political in nature. I am unsure if “Radiation Hormesis” is really about life in Eastern Europe right after the Chernobyl disaster, or if I’m making the connection because Chernobyl is back in the public consciousness thanks to the HBO mini-series: but either way, the poem’s description of outdoor desolation and indoor claustrophobia and the “how bad could it really be” mentally that so many of us exhibit when confronted with something that’s designated dangerous but isn’t visibly so is deeply moving. I had tears welling while reading and rereading this one. “Replicate Personal Experience” starts out as a description of being the lonely, different, new kid in town, but takes a SFnal twist that opens the poem up to even more meaning. “The Oracle of DARPA” put me in mind of Orwell, of the double-speak of 1984 and how it can be used for good or ill.

The poems in “The Up-and-Out” are perhaps more future-looking that the other sections, with focuses on bonding with colony worlds, the limited bounds of memory and physicality. “You Are Here / Was: Blue Line to Memorial Park” is an interactive poem meant to be viewed and read, blending computer science with the art of poetry.

I got a lot out of this collection and as I said, I’m not a big fan of reading poetry. I think people who love poetry will get a lot more out of it that I did, and I highly recommend it.

DESCRIPTION: (from Goodreads): From international sensation Ashok K. Banker, pioneer of the fantasy genre in India, comes the first book in a ground-breaking, epic fantasy series inspired by the ancient Indian classic, The Mahabharata.

In a world where demigods and demons walk among mortals, the Emperor of the vast Burnt Empire has died, leaving a turbulent realm without an emperor. Two young princes, Adri and Shvate, are in line to rule, but birthright does not guarantee inheritance: For any successor must sit upon the legendary Burning Throne and pass The Test of Fire. Imbued with dark sorceries, the throne is a crucible—one that incinerates the unworthy.

Adri and Shvate pass The Test and are declared heirs to the empire… but there is another with a claim to power, another who also survives: a girl from an outlying kingdom. When this girl, whose father is the powerful demonlord Jarsun, is denied her claim by the interim leaders, Jarsun declares war, vowing to tear the Burnt Empire apart—leaving the young princes Adri and Shvate to rule a shattered realm embroiled in rebellion and chaos....

MY RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

MY THOUGHTS: I mostly burned out on “epics” of all genres about a decade ago, give or take. Books topping out over 600 pages (many significantly over) just stopped appealing to me. The most “recent” book in George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series sits unread alongside a good number of Stephen King’s recent novels and countless others I bought with every good intention. Then in 2015 Ken Liu’s The Grace of Kings, the first novel in his Dandelion Dynasty series, came along, and I realized that maybe the issue was less the size of the books and more the content – the idea that no matter how good the writing or beloved the author (and believe me, I love Stephen King’s work), I got tired of reading the same types of epics. This idea was cemented by my great enjoyment of Dylan Struzan’s A Bloody Business (a Prohibition tale writ as sweeping, operatic epic if ever there was one) and now of Ashok K. Banker’s Upon A Burning Throne.

I was prepared to like Upon A Burning Throne because of how much I enjoyed Banker’s “Legends of the Burnt Empire” short stories (novelettes?) in recent issues of Lightspeed Magazine. While you can read this novel without reading those stories, they do provide a lot of the world-building backbone. Past events hinted at in the novel are given full detail in the stories, which build with a growing sense of inevitability to the event that directly precedes the opening scene of the novel: the birth of the princes Adri and Shvate.

If there’s one thing the Liu and Banker books have in common, it’s that their structural (if not narrative) basis is in epic poetry of the distant past as opposed to the epic fantasy tropes of more recent times. There’s little, if any, trace of Tolkien here, but plenty of moments that put me in mind of The Iliad (which I have read) and what I’ve heard of the Mahabharata (which I haven’t read). Gods and demi-gods abound in Liu and Banker’s books, directly and indirectly affecting key moments in human history, but there’s nary an orc or dragon to be found. Which to me is just damned refreshing.

The book is sweeping in time-span (covering more than 20 years of character time), in location (cities and sub-nations across the Krushan Empire and their warring neighbor Reygistan) and in cast (by my count 14 major/important characters, almost as many secondary characters who momentarily get the spotlight, and a score of gods and goddesses). Epic is not an overstatement or a cliché here.

Like many ancient epic poems, Banker does not always reveal events in chronological order, sometimes breaking off mid-battle or mid-political-intrigue to introduce a new character and give their backstory only when they become important to the narrative. In lesser hands, this could make the story disjointed or make it feel disorganized. Banker handles it with a deft ease that belies how hard this kind of storytelling actually is, and the shifts in point-of-view actually heighten, rather than confuse or diminish, the reader’s interest. Every time the story took a seemingly disconnected jump to a new character or new place, I found myself eagerly asking how this was going to tie back to the main story. And it always did. It all does. There’s not a wasted scene. And while Banker may be laying the seeds of future volumes throughout this one, not a single seeming digression fails to loop back to the main narrative before the book’s final pages.

Okay, that’s not completely true. There is one character introduced in a major way in the prologue who I thought would be an important presence throughout this book but who disappears almost immediately. Even once I recognized the absence in scenes the character surely should have been present for, it didn’t bother me; something has to held back for Book Two (currently due in the spring of 2020) after all.

Although there are, as I mentioned, over a dozen main characters to contend with, the real focus is on the Princes Adri and Shvate – one blind, the other albino – and their struggles to prove they are capable of leading the vast Krushan Empire (note: not whether they are worthy – that issue is settled in the prologue – but whether they are capable; two very different concerns). If there is any similarity to the high/Euro-centric fantasy of Tolkien and Martin, it is in this. The Princes are viewed as “disabled” and thus, like Tolkien’s Hobbits, not seen as capable of accomplishing the task set before them. Other strive to convince them they should hand the task over to someone(s) more “normally-abled.” Like Frodo and Sam, Adri and Shvate have moments where their so-called disadvantages are what saves the day, moments where they fail, and moments where they are buoyed by loved ones or boon companions. Like Martin’s Stark siblings, the Princes are good men buffeted by the political machinations of less-good to downright-evil people. Also like Martin’s characters and like the protagonists of so many ancient epics, the Princes and their closest allies are good but not perfect. They make mistakes; are lustful and insecure and bold by turn; they are sometimes incisive and sometimes oblivious. In short, they are real people rather than archetypes. I can’t think of a single character, other than perhaps the “big bad” Jarsun, who fails to reveal complexity as the action progresses.

Up until now, I’ve only read some of Banker’s short stories (not all of them connected to this book) and enjoyed them all. Upon A Burning Throne has inspired me to seek out more of Banker’s novels. Yes, even if they’re more than 600 pages long!

DESCRIPTION: (from the Publisher’s description): Once again in old London, "the game is afoot." In these pastiches of the Sacred Writings, written when he was nineteen and twenty, August Derleth has recreated the London of Sherlock Holmes. It does not matter that the familiar name has become Solar Pons, or that the familiar Baker Street has become Praed Street — something of the nostalgic charm and fascination, of the remembered quickening of the pulse and the familiar settings of the original London of Sherlock Holmes, has been recaptured in these pages. And what intriguing titles there arc to these twelve pastiches, chosen from among a greater number! Here are "The Adventure of the Frightened Baronet" — about a spectral image of Siva seen at a country estate beyond London; "The Adventure of the Purloined Periapt" — which is the purest of pastiches and perhaps the closest of all the tales in this book to the original spirit; "The Adventure of the Norcross Riddle" —containing some of the neatest deduction in the book; "The Adventure of the Man with the Broken Face" — a tale of "dark waters"; and eight others. "No doubt," writes Vincent Starrett in his Introduction, "we — and by we, I mean those frantic and incurable Sherlockians who, with August Derleth, deplore the paucity of canonical entertainments — should rather have more of the great originals, but we accept the imitations, faute de mieux, to satisfy a normal appetite. And we accept them with enthusiasm. They are the work of affectionate minds and hands. There is no intention to deceive. These stories, and others in their field, are intended only to please. They are nostalgic reminders of vanished days and nights in Baker Street."

MY RATING: four out of five stars

MY THOUGHTS: I’m sure I knew of Solar Pons, as one of the many Sherlock Holmes pastiches I read in middle and high school. But I didn’t really become consciously aware of him, or just how many stories comprise the Pontine Canon, until I started regularly haunting used book stores and participating in various pulp magazine and “Wold Newton Universe” online groups about a decade and a half ago. Whether the Pontine Canon is composed only of the original stories by August Derleth or includes the later stories written by Basil Copper is for more knowledgeable minds than mine to debate; I bought all of the Pons 70s paperbacks I could find in those used bookstores with the intent of reading the whole series once I had them all. What inspired me to finally start (having finally read/listened to the entire Holmesian canon in order a few years ago) is the re-issue of the Derleth books by Belanger Books under the editorship of Pons expert David Marcum. And, more specifically, the offer from the publisher of a free audiobook of this first book in the series in exchange for an honest review.

For those not in the know (and who somehow missed the book description just above): August Derleth created Solar Pons to be the successor to Sherlock Holmes. Pons and his amanuensis, Doctor Lyndon Parker, are very much like their literary predecessors -- Derleth wasn't trying to create something new and daring, but was rather paying tribute to characters who had given him so much joy and for whom new adventures would not be forthcoming (I wonder, did Derleth ever suspect the overwhelming amount of new Holmes fiction that would be written, authorized or otherwise, after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s passing? Did Derleth suspect that there would be more Pons stories written and published beyond his originals?)

The stories in this first collection, therefore, feel very much like Derleth writing Doyle: the stories are short and punchy; Parker spends a few paragraphs in each story talking about Pons’ amazing skills of ratiocination; Pons constantly tries to get Parker to deduce what’s really going on but of course the Chronicler is, if not clueless, at least not as intuitive as his friend. There are detectives and beat cops from Scotland Yard who are impressed by the detective but also a bit off-put by him; there’s a criminal mastermind with hinted-at history that we never quite get enough information about; there are even street-urchin “Irregulars” to help Pons in situations where multiple suspects need to be under surveillance.

It sounds sort of derivative, doesn’t it? And yet … in the reading, it doesn’t feel derivative at all. Derleth’s narrative voice, through Lyndon Parker, is lighter than Doyle’s, less serious but not lacking in tension. The Pons-Parker dynamic is a bit more playful than that of their predecessors, without sacrificing the mutual respect they have. Pons’ relationship with Scotland Yard is less condescending (although he still pokes at the fact that he can find clues they seem incapable of finding on their own), and so the various officers’ attitude to Pons is more openly respectful. And Derleth doesn’t wait until he’s ready to kill his lead character off to introduce an arch-nemesis: Baren Ennesfred Kroll is mentioned in one story in this collection and actually appears in another. I assume he recurs in later volumes as well.

Steve White’s narration of the audiobook is at its best in the voices of Parker and Pons, who feel distinct from each other (Pons is a little more nasal in delivery, Parker a bit broader-toned). I didn’t always feel like the supporting character voices worked; some felt like the accent was more South African, some felt at odds with the character descriptions (for instance, Parker describes in one story a beautiful young woman as their client, but White’s character voice is more middle-age matronly). But overall, White does a wonderful job keeping the stories tense and exciting, and finding the humor in both Parker and Pons’ lines where appropriate.

This first Solar Pons collection is full of fun mysteries, some more predictable than others, with an engaging lead detective and sidekick. If you’ve read all of Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, you’re likely to enjoy this as a follow-up. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the series, or listening if Belanger Books brings out more audiobook editions.

Description: “Anyone who believes that faeries are wee, golden-haired creatures with dragon-fly wings and sweet intentions has never met a real faerie.” –Suzanne Willis, “A Silver Thread Between Worlds”

Retellings of familiar favorites from new perspectives, and brand-new stories share the pages of this fairy-themed collection. Within these offerings you’ll find fairy music and food, contracts (making and breaking them), changelings, circles and curses–these stories deliver all the things you already love about fairies and a few new tricks as well. A dusting of dragons, shapeshifters and ogres accompany these tales which include feminist fairies overcoming trauma, Norse fairies breaking the rules to interfere in human affairs, intergalactic fairies hitching a ride to a new home, political satire featuring an idiot king and talking animals, a new Robin Archer story, fairy run nightclubs and so, so much more.

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My Thoughts: Disclaimer: I received a free Advanced Review Copy of this title via Booksprout in return for an honest review on multiple platforms. This is a more detailed version of the review left on Goodreads, Amazon, etc.

F Is for Fairy continues Rhonda Parrish's greatly enjoyable "alphabet anthology" series with 26 stories ranging from flash fiction to almost novella length. Of course, not every story will work for every reader. But the majority of these worked for me.

The authors give us a wide variety of types of faeries, from the high fantasy/Tolkeinesque to tiny troublemakers of the Disney variety. L.S. Johnson’s “A” story treats us to a tweak of the Sleeping Beauty myth that makes the narrative even more timely and topical, touching on gaslighting, victims keeping secrets and women finding power in each other, while Brittany Warman’s “N” is a very dark take on Peter Pan. Sara Cleto’s “T” is not a tweak on a Disney-fication of darker tales but is a really cool tweak on certain events in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Pete Aldin’s “E” brings Irish pixies to colonial Australia, touching on inherited and learned prejudices and how easy it is to lose your family history, while Samantha Kymmell-Harvey’s “S” brings World War One to a small French fairy enclave. C.S. MacCath’s “B” gives us warrior elves of the Nordic variety encountering Church-guided bigotry in the not-so-distant-as-it-seems past. Steve Bornstein’s “F” is perhaps the most High Fantasy concept (a lost fairy is led by a friendly dragon to the only person who can send him home: the Scourge of Dragons) but contains some creative world-building that moves it beyond the glut of formulaic High Fantasy on the market.

One of the few comedic contributions is Jonathan C. Parrish’s “C,” centered around the idea of elves loving to make deals, and all the ways in which greed and rash decisions can make those contracts go wrong. Equally humorous is Michael B. Tager’s “P,” a twist on portal and prophecy tales.

Urban fantasy is well represented. In Stephanie A. Cain’s “G,” we meet Lucy Ruiz and see how she learns about the world of werewolves and fairies that interacts with our own. If this isn’t an origin story for an on-going character, I’ll be greatly surprised. The story has charm and Lucy has real spark with the werewolf character. Laura VanArendonk Baugh’s “W” is touted as “the latest Robin Archer” story. I’m not familiar with the series but based on this story I need to check it out. It’s urban fantasy with a crime noir twist that’s a bit darker than the faux-noir of the Harry Dresden series. (Actually, I can easily see Robin Archer and October Daye teaming up.) But not all of the urban fantasy tales feel like parts of series: Michael M. Jones’ “X” and Lilah Ward’s “O” tales both take place in nightclubs where human girls encounter Ladies of the Fae – but that’s about all they have in common, and both are excellent.

Then there are those genre-blending stories that every anthology needs to have. In Jeanne Kramer-Smyth’s “D,” aliens encounter fairies; Beth Cato’s “Z” brings us to the end of human civilization and how the elves might have both caused it and try to preserve it, and BD Wilson’s “V” posits a post-apocalyptic society guided by fairies.

Notice I'm not sharing story titles: part of the fun of Parrish's anthologies is figuring out what word the author is centering the story on with the letter they were assigned. Some of them might be easy to guess just from the short descriptions I’ve given, but I think most will be a pleasant surprise.

DESCRIPTION: (from the back cover): On the 100th anniversary of Prohibition, learn what really happened. In 1919, the National Prohibition Act was passed, making it illegal across America to produce, distribute, or sell liquor. With this act, the U.S. Congress also created organized crime as we know it. Italian, Jewish, and Irish mobs sprang up to supply the suddenly illegal commodity to the millions of people still eager to drink it. Men like Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky, Dutch Schultz and Bugsy Siegel, Al Capone in Chicago and Nucky Johnson in Atlantic City, waged a brutal war for power in the streets and on the waterfronts. But if you think you already know this story… think again, since you’ve never seen it through the eyes of one of the mobsters who lived it.

Called “one of the most significant organized crime figures in the United States” by the U.S. District Attorney, Vincent “Jimmy Blue Eyes” Alo was just fifteen years old when Prohibition became law. Over the next decade, Alo would work side by side with Lansky and Luciano as they navigated the brutal underworld of bootlegging, thievery and murder. Alo’s later career included jail time and the ultimate Mob tribute: being immortalized as “Johnny Ola” in The Godfather, Part II.

Introduced to the 91-year-old Alo living in retirement in Florida, Dylan Struzan based this book on more than 50 hours of recorded testimony – stories Alo had never shared, and that he forbid her to publish until “after I’m gone.” Alo died, peacefully, two months short of his 97th birthday. And now his stories – bracing and violent, full of intrigue and betrayal, hunger and hubris – can finally be told.

MY RATING: four out of five stars

MY THOUGHTS: The only appropriate word to describe Dylan Struzan’s A Bloody Business is “epic.” Dozens of major characters, court intrigue, romance, god-like manipulations, massive bloodshed, a decade-plus time-span in which characters are born, age, and die … change the names and the time period and you’ve got Homer, add mythological creatures and you’ve got Tolkien or Martin. The story of Prohibition, as told here, is every bit the compelling story The Iliad and The Lord of the Rings are.

Struzan’s style, from first page to last, is clipped, staccato, like the tommy-guns the protagonists wield (although not as frequently as gangster movies would have us believe). She keeps the pace fast even in the quieter moments, squeezing 13 years of machinations and scheming into 640 pages in a combination of history text and novel. It’s “creative non-fiction” and Struzan makes it work; the dialogue (mostly, I’m sure, invented from Jimmy Alo’s memories and hearsay) mingled with non-mob-related historical data (mostly confirmable pop culture and government changes) keep the story from feeling stale. The sensory details of city life are used sparingly, but when they pop up they add verisimilitude. There were a few moments when I really felt the cold of NYC winters, the salt tang of Coney Island and Atlantic City boardwalks, thanks to a few well-placed phrases. Interestingly, I don’t recall now the same level of sensory detail used in the Chicago, Cleveland, or Florida scenes.

Struzan resists the twin temptations of setting Lansky, Luciano and company on a pedestal or demonizing them. Meyer Lansky, Benny Siegel and Charlie Luciano are the protagonists of the story, but Struzan doesn’t pretend they were heroes or perfect. All of their flaws and foibles are well on display, alongside the character traits that made them men other men wanted to follow. Al Capone doesn’t come off quite as well-rounded: Struzan concentrates on his unpredictability both before and after the Valentine’s Day Massacre took such a toll on his mental well-being. The antagonists of the story are the Sicilian-Italian “old guard” (Joe the Boss, Salvatore Maranzano, and others) who are waging all-out gang war. Struzan tries to get into their heads as well, but it doesn’t feel as successful. Of the men named in the back-cover copy, I had to feel a little bad for Nucky Johnson. Even the scenes set in Atlantic City barely featured him. Irish mobsters like Legs Diamond and Eddie McGrath get more screen-time, being in New York City and northeast New Jersey, than the more southerly-located Johnson does. The implication is that while Johnson’s control of AC was integral to the movement of booze during Prohibition, he wasn’t as important to the actual growth of organized crime as his peers were.

The author also doesn’t shy away from the violence that was part and parcel of these men’s lives. The gun-play, the beatings, the bombings, are all spelled out – as are the details of who made the decisions and how they felt about it. The Valentine’s Day Massacre isn’t the only big event spelled out in bloody detail. Some scenes are definitely not an easy read.

If there’s any disappointment I felt with the book, it’s that Jimmy Alo – whose fifty hours of recorded stories the book is based on – gets short shrift in his own story. Granted, he came into the picture later than Lansky, Luciano and Siegel. But I expected, once he did join the story, to see more of what he was doing even when it was tangential to the story of the “big three.” Maybe Struzan has another book in the works specifically about Jimmy Blue Eyes. I’d like to read it.

The cover and copious interior illustrations by Drew Struzan enhance the story. They’re almost photo-realistic, a bit Norman Rockwell, a bit art deco, often with an interesting balance between innocence and violence.

This is the first of a new series of posts about … well, series. I do so love stories that continue across volumes, in whatever form: linked short stories, novels, novellas, television, movies. I’ve already got a list of series I’ve recently read, re-read, watched, or re-watched that I plan to blog about. I might even, down the line, open myself up to letting other people suggest titles I should read/watch and then comment on.

For this inaugural edition, I’m going to ramble on a bit about a recently-concluded trilogy which I absolutely loved: Beth Cato’s Blood of Earth Trilogy.

The Blood of Earth trilogy is a magic-infused alternate history with steampunk trappings. The setting is various cities in the western United States, plus a short jaunt to Hawaii at a pivotal moment. It is 1906, just before the great San Francisco Earthquake. The United States and Japan have formed a powerful alliance called the Unified Pacific. China has been subjugated by Japan while Chinese in America are ghettoized, stereotyped, and removed from all chances at equal opportunities. Tensions along the western seaboard are mounting as Chinese residents are treated with less and less humanity – at the same time that the Unified Pacific also seems to be having political disagreements with the British (who have their own insurrection going on) and Russians (who are moving to control the Alaskan oil market).

Kermanite, a mined ore that can hold earth-generated magical energy for later use, is the “power behind the throne.” It’s used to power items small and great, allowing this alternate Earth to have flying ships and weapons which are steam-punk in design and execution if not operation. Some people are more capable of wielding this earth-magic than others; Wardens are stationed around the world to monitor, absorb, and control the energy released by seismic activity. The Wardens are all men – because the idea that a woman could wield such power is just unthinkable in this society. And the idea of a woman of mixed heritage holding such power is not only unthinkable, it’s unfathomable.

Enter Ingrid Carmichael: a powerful magic-user hiding in plain sight as a secretary to a powerful San Francisco-based Warden because women shouldn’t be able to do even an eighth of what she can do. Trained by Warden Sakaguchi from childhood and past the untimely death of her mother, Ingrid is strong-willed. But also knows how to blend in – half Black, half Pacific Islander, and a woman, she kind of has to be able to navigate the anti-Asian, and specifically anti-Chinese, sentiments around her.

Ingrid’s best friend is Lee – a Chinese teen servant/surrogate son to Mr. Sakaguchi who has secrets of his own that come into play as the series progresses. Mr. Sakaguchi is a surrogate father to Ingrid as well, given the disappearance of her own father when she was a small child.

Early in the first book, Ingrid meets the handsome, smart, secretive Cy, who is on the run as a Deserter, trying to leave warmongering family history behind. Cy is accompanied by his best friend from the military academy, Fenris – an incredible mechanic/engineer/pilot who is full of heart but acts gruff and uncaring. Fenris, as it turns out, is transgender. Cato works this fact in smoothly, as just another character fact no more or less important than Ingrid’s heritage or Cy’s family history.

Outside of Mr. Sakaguchi, the rest of the Wardens we meet are questionable at best, enemies at worst. When we meet Warden Blum – a powerful Japanese politician – and Warden Roosevelt – yes, Teddy Roosevelt – we’re not sure if they will be friends or foes to Ingrid. Roosevelt is the one “real” historical supporting character in the series. His presence grounds the story in our own history. Cato’s portrayal isn’t always flattering, but I think she captures the real Roosevelt very well – for every national park he created, he said or did something to marginalize people of color, and Cato captures that dichotomy so very well.

But while the presence of Roosevelt and cities like San Francisco, Seattle, Portland and such make the world familiar, it’s the magic and the way it works (for peace and for war) that is the most impressive part of the world-building. Magical creatures exist, ranging from the almost-unknowable (giant snakes that live in seismic fault lines and whose movements generate the earth-magic at the core of the story), to the mighty (Chinese guardian spirits called Quilin, the goddess Pele) to the human-ish (kitsune, selkies) to the tiny (colonies of sylphs). Cato’s explanations for how magical energy is generated, the sickening effects it can have on those not talented enough to hold and control it, the way the Kermanite stores it and releases it – all feel so complete, so true, that every time the ground shakes I wonder if someone nearby is absorbing the energy to protect the rest of us. And the uses to which the magic is put feel very true to our own world. Some people just want to use it to heal (Reiki and acupuncture specialists), help (Ingrid) or build (Cy and Fenris, peripherally), while others want to use it to control (various wardens/politicians) or destroy (the Japanese government and certain insurrectionists). And while our main characters clearly choose sides/roles early on, there are many characters who start out believing one choice is correct and come to see the opposite (telling you who would spoil too much of the second and third books).

The character-building is as impressive as the world-building. Almost every main and supporting character has an arc to be explored. Some of those arcs build slower than others, and there’s at least one character I wish had had more of a storyline, but they all get to have their own moments and lives even while serving the main plot. Even tertiary characters have personality and a living energy often missing from characters who come on stage only to serve a brief purpose / propel the action forward. Ingrid is a wonderfully strong-willed lead character, but that’s not her only trait. She’s insecure about her abilities and what effect they will have if she can’t control them; she’s sometimes head-strong to a fault; she swings from too-trusting to too-suspicious (sometimes at inconvenient times); she pushes herself beyond her limits to save others; she is funny, smart, and romantic. In other words, real and well-rounded. And Cy is almost totally the same – the old saying “opposites attract” is put to the lie here – without subverting Ingrid’s lead role in her own story. And make no mistake: though surrounded by interesting subplots for her group of supporting characters, this trilogy is Ingrid’s story – Ingrid’s fight to hone her abilities, uncover her family’s past, defeat the enemies and save the day. Beth Cato is a fantastic author, and I’m sure she could tell interesting stories in this world without Ingrid if she really wanted to – but she couldn’t tell this story without Ingrid involved every step of the way, up to the very satisfactory end of book three, in which all plots and important subplots are wrapped up.

So: read the Blood of Earth trilogy if you like magic-infused alternate history, strong female leads, diverse supporting casts, steampunk-ish technology, and legends come to life. I’d be surprised if you were disappointed at all.

DESCRIPTION: (from the back cover) “Bless Me Father, For I Have Rented.” What will a group of monks do when their two-century-old monastery in New York City is threatened with demolition to make room for a new high-rise? Anything they have to. “Thou Shalt Not Steal” is only the first of the Commandments to be broken as the saintly face off against the unscrupulous over that most sacred of relics, a Park Avenue address.

MY RATING: four out of five stars (check this on Goodreads to be sure)

MY THOUGHTS:

While the cover art by Paul Mann makes the novel look like a Bondian spy adventure, Brothers Keepers is yet another fun caper novel from the great Donald E. Westlake (and seriously, I know I say this every time I review a Hard Case Crime Westlake re-release, but … how did I make it so long without reading any Westlake at all? Every title of his HCC has released, I’ve loved). It’s almost a Shakespearean comedy: there’s manipulation, mistaken identities, sexual innuendo and actual sex (on the beach and near it), cunning wordplay, and (spoiler alert) a happy ending, of course. It’s light, frothy, funny – but also a bit philosophical.

The monks in question are of the Crispinite Order of the Novum Mundum – dedicated to the contemplation of Travel, but not to Traveling itself, unless absolutely necessary. Yes. An order founded by an immigrant who was visited by the patron saints of Travel wherein the members actually dislike the very idea of Travel and do their best to stay safely walled off from the world. So of course, some of them end up having to leave the monastery for more than just the time it takes to go buy the Sunday paper at a nearby newsstand, and hilarity ensues. But in among the humorous stuff, Westlake allows us to think about the nature of Travel, of how it’s changed over the past few centuries as technology has made it easier for us to work farther from home and to get from point A to point B, and of how the increased ability to Travel has changed the way people relate and react to each other. That he accomplishes this without browbeating the reader is a testament to his ability as a storyteller.

Our narrator is Brother Benedict, who came to the monastery on the rebound from a failed relationship. If that’s not a trope, I don’t know what is – but Westlake tweaks it in subtle ways, giving Benedict depth and a compelling character voice. He’s a simple man and the life, and lack of temptation, suits him. Of course, temptation gets thrown in his lap, in the form of the daughter of the landlord selling the property. For me, Eileen Flattery was the weak point in the novel. She never quite rises above being a spoiled, disaffected rich girl, just as the rest of her family and close circle of friends never rise about being selfish (at worst) or self-absorbed (at best). Benedict’s interest in her catches her attention, but it’s more the novelty of getting a monk to renege on his vows, and how her parents will react, than love of Benedict himself that motivates her.

It turns out that while the monastery itself can’t be sold, the land it was built on certainly can be, and the transfer of ownership is virtually complete. There’s a clause in the lease that would give the monks options to fight, but the original lease can’t be found, even though it should rightly be in the monastery office. The shenanigans involved in attempting to find the lease and other primary documents that would support court action are probably the funniest in the novel. Dusty attics, illuminated manuscripts made from mundane documents, art projects left behind by previous Abbots of the monastery … all are props the author uses to shine a light on the personalities, and previous life experiences, of Benedict’s fellow monks. The monks aren’t treated as one-note jokes or as a uniform species; all of their backstories are explored in small moments and bits of dialogue that give them real dimension. There’s a former banker, a former lawyer, a former conman, a former political activist, and more. Each of their knowledge bases comes to play, but it’s Brother Benedict who ends up having to Travel further than any to convince Eileen to help them.

It’s no surprise that our narrator turns out to be the least worldly man among his peers, and this sets up an interesting counterpoint: the monk most willing to Travel on the monastery’s behalf is the one with the least experience in navigating the world outside the monastery. Benedict’s travails and temptations make up the middle of the book and his wide-eyed innocence makes them funnier than they’d be if told in any voice but his own.

I don’t want to give away too much about how that previously-mentioned happy ending comes about, because Westlake slyly tweaks the typical “third act reversal and reveal” model. Suffice to say, the last third of the book is as fun and tongue-in-cheek as the rest of the book.

If you’re looking for a fun romp, this is definitely a book worth picking up.

Anthony’s favorite punctuation mark is the semi-colon because thanks to cancer surgery in 2005, a semi-colon is all he has left. Enjoy Anthony's blog "Semi-Colon," where you will find Anthony's commentary on various literary subjects.